Let's be realistic about this history thing. Since the first public high school in the U.S. didn't open until 1820 (Boston Public in Massachusetts), and the first truancy laws were not put in place until the early 1850s (also in Massachusetts), it's pretty safe to say there wasn't huge concern about where most kids received their education—as in, at school or at home—prior to the mid-19th century.

In general, up until that time, there were various community and township schools for the public at large to use as they saw fit—as well as Latin schools, institutions, and private tutors for members of society's upper classes. Still, it was equally plausible that most youngsters would receive their primary and secondary educations at home.

So while you could say that there exists a rich history of homeschooling between the European colonization of America in the 1600s and the establishment of the Department of Education in 1867, it's not likely that anybody referred to it as "homeschooling" way back when because, well, it was the norm.

True, that still means that most of our early presidents and historical figures were, in fact, "homeschooled." But we're going to begin our timeline of homeschooling in the U.S. long after all of our founding mothers and fathers completed their early educations. In the mid-20th century, to be precise.

Why? Because at that time, home education had become the rare exception instead of the rule, and that was when that people began to question the efficacy of America's transition to institutionalized education. That's when parents and instructors started to explore the possibility of removing children from public schools to once again pursue learning opportunities on the home front.

And that's where we'll kick it off here.

Early 1960s: Social critics and educational reformers begin to publically question the value of institutionalized education. They express doubts about compulsory school attendance, teaching and organizational methods, the cultural values being passed down, the institutionalization of society, and the overall quality of education received by students. That's a lot of doubts.

1964: Paul Goodman publishes Compulsory Mis-education, which suggests (candidly) that compelling children to attend school is not the best use of their youth.

1964: Fifth-grade teacher John Holt (not to be confused with John Galt) causes a stir with the publication of How Children Fail, a book about the shortcomings of formal education. Almost as big a stir as if he actually had been John Galt.

1970: Holt founds Holt Associates in Boston in 1969 and begins advocating for parents to reconsider institutionalized education altogether and pursue "unschooling" instead. As Holt once said, "It's not that I feel that school is a good idea gone wrong, but a wrong idea from the word go. It's a nutty notion that we can have a place where nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life." Pretty wild, huh? Well, Holt onto your horses.

1971: Ivan Illich adds to the criticism of institutionalized education with his book, Deschooling Society. His big idea is that schools teach conformity and strip students of unique ideas, all while preparing them for the "rat race." And that (he argues) instills them with false ideas of progress and indoctrinates them into unconscious consumerism. Illich even goes so far as to suggest that "for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school." We're sure he meant women too. Either way, it's pretty radical.

1972: In Wisconsin vs. Yoder, the Supreme Court rules that Amish parents have the right to remove their children from school at age 12 in order to preserve their way of life.

1977: John Holt (there he is again) founds Growing Without Schooling, the first magazine devoted to homeschooling, unschooling, and learning outside of school. It gets published continuously for 24 years, until 2001.

1981: Raymond and Dorothy Moore publish Home Grown Kids, a book which is the culmination of years of research into childhood development and a follow-up to their 1975 title, Better Late Than Early. (They're good with catchy titles, in case you didn't notice.) HGK asserts that early formal education is actually detrimental for children and that children should be taught at home until at least age eight or nine. Plus, it offered strategies for doing so. How subversive.

1982: States begin to pass laws allowing parents to homeschool without violating truancy laws. Between 1982 and 1993, 34 states pass laws to legalize homeschooling. As a side note, only Nevada and Utah had homeschool legislation in place prior to 1982—Nevada passed such a law in 1956, and Utah did so in 1957.

1983: Home Education Magazine begins publication, giving homeschoolers and folks who were curious about it a new way to share information and network nationally. (Remember: No Interwebs yet.)

1983: Inspired by the ideas of Raymond and Dorothy Moore, evangelical preacher Gregg Harris begins publishing the magazine The Teaching Home. Harris views homeschooling in the early years and beyond as an opportunity for Christians to pass their faith on to their children, and his work helps expand the Christian homeschool movement. Unlike earlier proponents of homeschooling who advocated leaving schools due to pedagogical concerns, members of the Christian homeschool movement advocate schooling at home for religious reasons. A new branch of homeschool ideas begins to blossom.

1983: Michael P. Farris and J. Michael Smith, attorneys who focus on the Christian homeschool movement and the law, found the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSDLA). It's an organization open to any homeschooler—regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof. Okay, so employees of the HSDLA are required to sign Christian statements of faith, but as for actual students, the HSDLA works to make homeschooling available and accessible for all.

1985: John Holt dies, but Growing Without Schooling continues to be published until 2001. In case you couldn't tell, he was kind of a big deal.

1989: Only three states remain in which homeschooling is illegal: Michigan, North Dakota, and Iowa. Not to point the finger.

1993: Finally. Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states.

1999: U.S. Department of Education's National Council for Education Statistics (NCES) issues its first report counting the number of homeschoolers in the United States. It places the number at 850,000 students, which was (at that point) 1.7% of the student population. Sounds small, but it's not too shabby when you think about it.

2000: Patrick Henry College establishes itself as the first postsecondary education institution intended to serve primarily homeschooled students. The college has a distinct religious affiliation and describes itself as "centered on Christ."

2003: In its second count of homeschoolers in the U.S., NCES places the number at just under 1.1 million. Now we're up to about 2% of the student population. Slow but steady.

2007: Ready for another climb? NCES reports that 1.55 million students in the U.S. are homeschooled. Yup—that's approximately 3% of the student population.

2012: Well, it can't grow at that rate forever. This time, NCES reports the number of homeschoolers in the U.S. to have reached 1.77 million students, which is 3.4% of the student population.

The Future: Who. Knows.